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We ended our last activities in Peru in November 2023.

MSF has responded to diseases including HIV and, more recently, COVID-19, while also responding to disasters such as earthquakes.

Our teams in Peru provided HIV treatment to people in prisons until 2006 and responded to a massive earthquake on the southeastern coast in August 2007. We also responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, where our teams provided treatment to patients. 

After two years, our project supporting people on migration routes in northern Peru closed at the end of November 2023. 

 

Our activities in 2023 in Peru

Data and information from the International Activity Report 2023.

MSF in Peru in 2023 Throughout 2023, Médecins Sans Frontières teams provided medical and mental healthcare to Venezuelan migrants and refugees in northern Peru, and assistance to people injured during political protests in the capital, Lima.
Peru IAR map 2023

As in previous years, most of the patients seen by our teams in Tumbes, the northern region bordering Ecuador, were Venezuelans who have settled there after travelling for weeks or even months, often on foot, to flee poverty, unrest and political instability in their home country. Peru hosts the second-largest number of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the world, with over 1.5 million living there by the end of 2023.*

Many patients were exposed to violence during their journeys, including robberies and sexual assault, and had little access to food or water for long stretches of time. In Peru, they continue to live in precarious, unhygienic conditions, often facing exclusion from medical care due to their irregular administrative status. The services we ran in Tumbes included general healthcare, sexual and reproductive healthcare, mental health support, emergency referrals to hospitals, and treatment for chronic diseases. We offered these same services to migrants from other Latin American countries, as well as to the local community.

From December 2022, political protests swept the country following the ousting of President Pedro Castillo, triggering a violent response from the army and the police, during which dozens of people were killed and over 1,200 were wounded. Our team in Lima immediately launched emergency activities on multiple occasions during the following months, providing first aid and psychological support to people suffering from exposure to tear gas, pellet wounds, contusions or mental distress.

At the end of the year, we decided to end our operations in Peru in early 2024, due to resource-related challenges, and to enable us to respond to acute needs elsewhere in the world.
 

*UNHCR, https://reporting.unhcr.org/operational/operations/peru

 

In 2023
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